


uvidimsya zavtra

by TreacleTeacups



Series: Drabbles n Oneshots [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: ... angst?, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence from 4th Year, Horcrux Harry Potter, Loss of magical core, M/M, Runaway Harry, Soul bonds n such, Unreliable Narrator, dark and fluffy, if you squint? - Freeform, in which harry runs and tom hunts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25965208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TreacleTeacups/pseuds/TreacleTeacups
Summary: In which Harry realises he owes the wizarding world nothing and runs before he can compete in the Triwizard Tournament. It may cost him his magical core, but the price of freedom is worth it.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: Drabbles n Oneshots [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859008
Comments: 89
Kudos: 1412
Collections: Extraordinary Harry Potter FanFics, Harry Potter, Storycatchers' pile of magical stories from the world of Harry Potter, The Read Agains and Agains Potter, Yukikawa’s HP Bookshelf





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is a two part oneshot based on the prompt:  
>  _“Harry wondered if he could runaway. Yeah that might cost him his magic but that was better than dying in his opinion, he knew that the goblet of fire was a problem but this way too much. He keep thinking about it, magic for his life, he only had 3 years with his magic and even without it he was very resourceful, the day he saw the dragons he made a decision; he took everything he could need and got inside the tunnel towards the shrieking shack, from there he flew away without another word”_
> 
> I don't speak any of the languages other than English referenced in this fic, so apologies if I've mistranslated anything. Hope you enjoy <3

Harry packs his bag quickly. He has just a few hours before the other students wake up and he does not want to be here for when that happens. Over and over in his mind plays the image of a furious dragon spouting magical fire into the night, the tangerine light flickering the forest with shallow shadows.

The hair on Harry’s arms rise, his throat swelling uncomfortably as he pauses and looks at Ron’s bed. The curtains are drawn, as are all the other curtains of the other four-poster beds, but Harry knows Ron’s back is turned to him. Harry swallows around the lump in his throat.

_You want to get to bed, Harry. I expect you’ll need to be up early tomorrow for a photocall or something… Should’ve realized you didn’t want to be disturbed. I’ll let you get on with practicing for your next interview in peace._

Recalling Ron’s words, Harry feels something inside of him harden. His resolve sets.

No matter what he said, no matter what he did, Ron was completely convinced Harry had done this for attention. For fame. For wealth. The jealous _git_. And though Harry wants to be angry (and he is, for a fair amount of the time), there’s something so… Wounding. About Ron not believing him. For treating him like Dudley used to treat him.

Harry grits his teeth and pulls his bag off his bed. He’s packed his essentials, leaving behind his school books and cauldrons and potion supplies.

Harry doesn’t know if running will break his magic. If it’ll turn him into a Squib.

Part of Harry feels a strange, hollow dread at the thought of losing his magic. There was nothing more wonderful, more amazing, than Hagrid’s words all those years ago – _Yer a wizard, ‘Arry_.

At the time, discovering Harry was a wizard had meant freedom. It had meant peace. It had meant starting a whole new life from a fresh page, escaping the miserable Dursley household and becoming someone _new_. Instead, though, Harry had obliviously walked directly into a role that had been written for him and he hadn’t even been aware of it until the lore of ‘The Boy Who Lived’ slapped him hard in the face. He was Supposed to do this, Meant to be that.

Harry had always known that he was going to run away from the Dursley household, when he was old enough. Discovering the wizarding world had given him an out without having to rely on himself. But… Over the years, Harry has realised that wizards and witches are no better than the Dursleys. And he discovered it way back in first year, when no one believed him that Snape was trouble and was trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone (though, to be fair, it was really Quirrell – but Snape was in on the secret so he wasn’t completely wrong!). Or like second year, when Harry was rumoured to be the Heir of Slytherin and everyone hated him. Or in third year, when the Dementors affected him so much and people whispered behind his back that he was crazy.

And now, fourth year. Something insidious is happening. Harry suspects Voldemort, but he would be called nuts if he admitted it to anyone. And the dreams he has – the strange, creepy, murderous baby being toted around by Wormtail – Harry doesn’t want to _see_ that anymore. He doesn’t want to be linked to Voldemort. Harry can only imagine what Rita Skeeter would write about him if she knew about _that._ Surely, she’d make him out to be some kind of raving lunatic, desperate for attention and money and power.

 _But_ _not anymore_. Harry isn’t going to let these people treat him this way anymore. Harry doesn’t _need_ magic. He doesn’t need to be revered and hated between breaths, he doesn’t need to be lifted up and torn down. Harry has always been alone, independent, capable of taking care of himself, thank you very much. He knows perfectly well who he is: Harry James Potter. Not the ‘Boy Who Lived’ or ‘Champion’ or whatever else nonsense people could come up with. Let Ron have all the damned titles and glory, for all he cares. And if that means that Harry becomes a Squib, well… It was a price worth paying for freedom.

Harry is running.

* * *

Harry’s first instinct is to find Sirius. Then he stops, thinks. Will Sirius make Harry go back, if only to save his own magic? Sirius is a pureblood, he relies on magic as much as he breathes, like Ron and Malfoy.

Harry hesitates. Sirius is his godfather. But, then again, Sirius had run away from him all those years ago to chase Peter Pettigrew and had gotten himself imprisoned for over a decade; he doesn’t have a great track record with keeping himself or Harry safe.

Shifting from foot to foot, Harry weighs his options. Sirius will expect to travel the magical way, either through floos or apparition or by Buckbeak. Harry knows how to travel the muggle way, how to keep his head down. The decision fills Harry with despair. He doesn’t want to leave Sirius behind – _his new family –_ but Sirius wouldn’t understand. Not really. Purebloods and those raised in the wizarding world spoke of Squibs as if they were… Tainted. _Broken_. Harry doesn’t want that, for Sirius to look at him and treat him like he’s _less._

Harry shudders, pulls his coat around him tighter as he creeps down the secret passageway under the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack.

Harry is under his invisibility cloak. He knows that Professor Moody can see under it, so Harry made sure to keep as quiet as possible, leaving in the dead of night and keeping an eye behind him for followers.

At last, Harry reaches the Shack. He mounts his broom, wondering what will happen once he’s officially outside of Hogwarts grounds. Once the Trizward Cup realises his intention to never participate.

Harry flies onward until he feels a tug on his chest. A hook is reached deep within him, trying to keep him on the grounds. Presumably, the Triwizard Cup. Harry clenches his jaw, eyes narrowed, and forces himself to take continue flying. The hook digs in deeper, tearing something within him. Harry grunts lowly through the building agony, forcing himself onward. Just as Harry passes by the dimly lit Hogsmeade, he feels the hook rip free.

Everything _hurts_ , a burning, fiery pain that sears Harry from the top of his head down to the tip of his toes. It’s like his body is on fire and Harry struggles to cling frozenly to his broom, to shut away the pain, to keep _moving._

Harry wraps his cloak around himself tighter, eyes crushed shut as he forces himself to keep on his broom, his body trembling around the cold and the endless pain. There’s a massive hole in his chest where the anchor ripped free. It feels… Empty. Hollow. Harry shoves the thoughts away, not thinking about it. _This is worth it,_ Harry tells himself, thinking back to every single time people had treated him poorly and made him feel like nothing, a nobody. Harry thinks about the people who tried to tell him what to do, the people who made fun of him and treated him like scum. To remind himself, Harry had taken one of the badges Malfoy had spelled – _Potter Stinks! –_ and he clutched it tight in one hand.

The price of freedom is worth it.

* * *

A handsome man peers at Harry through the darkness, his grey eyes glinting in the light of a single candle. Harry sits on his bed, staring at the man. He is far away, as if seen through a long tunnel. He watches Harry from afar. His mouth opens and sibilant words drip from his lips, a language only they share.

“ _Where are you, Harry Potter?”_

Harry lurches up with a gasp. He’s drenched in sweat, body trembling. Harry’s roommate groans and turns over irritably, yanking his comforter over his head. Harry grimaces, clenches his jaw.

It’s a bitter morning. The room is freezing cold and the room is slowly beginning to light up with the earliest stages of a sunrise, azure light filtering into the room. Harry sees his breath exhale from his lips and he quietly makes it out of his bed.

Harry shares the room with another backpacker. They are in a Belgian town. It is the closest Harry has been to the United Kingdom in eight years. Harry hadn’t meant to get so close. He’d been on a bus and fallen asleep, accidentally letting the charter bus drag him nearly to the UK border. He’d woken up and gotten off in time, spending the night in a small town before he heads in the other direction. The closer he gets, the stronger the dreams are.

Harry shakes off the dredges of his dream. He needs to go east. Needs to get away. Harry packs his bag, slips out of the room far before checkout. Harry leaves his passport behind. It’s not his passport, so he doesn’t mind. It was lifted from a young drunk who looked somewhat like Harry.

Walking out into the frosty morning, Harry turns to the east and begins to walk.

* * *

Harry scrubs a pot, keeping his head down and working his elbows.

“Bystreye!” His boss shouts and Harry grits his teeth, forcing his elbow to work harder. _Faster!_ Faster, Harry can do.

Harry has been a kitchen hand in the small Russian city for a month. It’s longer than he prefers to stay in one place, but the chef is kind (in the way a gruff old man can be) and actually pays Harry. Normally, when Harry asks to be paid in cash only, his paycheck gets skimped out on – if he even gets paid at all. But this man is nice, he took Harry in when Harry had nowhere to go. He knows that Harry will leave soon, but he still pays Harry dutifully each night and a fair wage at that.

The night is wrapping up. The last lingering couple have finished their meal and are busy giving one another mooning eyes over their dessert. Harry puts away the last of the dishes, sweeps and mops the floor, goes to take out the trash.

Harry is in the small alleyway in the back of the kitchen, lifting up the lid to the dumpster to toss in the rubbish bag, when he feels something like _magic_ skitter up his spine. Harry drops the dumpster lid loudly, the noise suppressed by the snow coating the alleyway and drifting lazily from the sky, and he turns sharply on his feet.

At the end of the alleyway stands a man. Harry has an immediate sense of déjà vu, looking down the long alley towards the silhouette – _he’s dreamt this_. Harry stands there dumbly, dressed only in a stained shirt and slacks and ratty kitchen apron, the lightly falling snow muting the world around him and coating his eyelashes in white.

Harry can’t move. He’s frozen in surprise, in shock. The man takes a step forward. Harry takes a step back.

“Harry,” the man says, voice drawling in a strange baritone that sends sparks up Harry’s spine. A warning, a calling, a summoning all in one. _Harry_.

Harry wants to turn on his heel and run. Wants to hate this person for tracking him down after all this time. Why won’t he understand? Why doesn’t he see? _Harry wants nothing to do with him, with any of them. Leave me alone!_

It is as if something inside Harry snaps. He is tired of being haunted. He is tired of being tracked. No one _owns_ him. He has no reason to run. If this man is who he thinks he is, then he can strike down Harry for all he cares. Harry won’t defend himself. He hasn’t been able to do magic since all those years ago, since he forced himself through the gates of a gilded cage. Harry had known what he was doing, had known what he was choosing.

Harry lifts his jaw, sends the silhouetted man a churlish look, and he bends down to pick up the rubbish bag. Harry tosses it into the dumpster and marches to the kitchen back door, letting it slam behind him as he decides to take a stand and stop running.

Harry gets off work at midnight, once the chef has given him his cash and a staff meal. The man says the same thing each night, Uvidimsya zavtra. _See you tomorrow._ It is an invitation and a goodbye rolled into one.

Harry repeats the phrase awkwardly – his Russian is poor and conversational at best – and tugs on his wool duffel coat. Harry doesn’t know if the man is waiting outside for him, but Harry can only hope that if he is, he will make it quick.

As expected, the man is there, standing across the street under the light of a streetlamp. The snow gives him an ethereal quality, as if from a dream.

A hand clasps on Harry’s shoulder, making him jump. He turns his head, the chef giving Harry a sidelong glance. “Vse normal'no?” He asks. _Is everything okay?_

“Da,” Harry says, sending the man a kind smile. He is older, greying. But he is big. Harry knows that he will stand by Harry to protect him, if he thinks Harry is in danger. Harry won’t let him, because no matter how strong nor big, a muggle cannot match a wizard. “On staryy drug.” _He’s an old friend._ “Uvidimsya zavtra.”

The chef nods and takes off down the street.

Harry stares at the man across the street. The man stares back at Harry.

“What do you want?” Harry says at last.

“You,” the man replies, word muffled in the slowly falling snow.

“Why?” Harry asks, huffing through a sardonic laugh. “I’m nobody now.”

“You have never been nobody, no matter how hard you try,” the man answers, amused.

Harry purses his lips, annoyed.

The man crosses the street and Harry keeps affixed to where he is, despite his feet wanting to run. Harry holds himself stiffly, angrily. As the man nears, Harry can see his instincts were right.

It as if Harry has stepped back in time, back to when he was twelve years old. The man in front of him is clearly Tom Riddle, though this visage is older than his sixteen-year-old memory. Perhaps in his early thirties. It is strange, for there to be only the appearance of ten years between them, when Harry knows there are nearly sixty.

“You have been gone for a long time, Harry,” Tom drawls, drawing near into Harry’s personal space. Harry tilts his head up to look at him, glaring through his frozen eyelashes. Tom stops a foot away from him – _too close too close –_ but Harry does not step back.

“Pochemu ty zdes'?” Tom Riddle says effortlessly, the Russian flowing from his mouth like a mother tongue. It takes Harry a moment to understand, to translate. It annoys him that _Tom Riddle_ speaks flawless Russian, where Harry has been bumbling through it for nearly six months. _Why are you here?_

“Where else would I be?” Harry replies, shrugging. Harry peers up at Tom Riddle, wary. They have never been the type to engage in small talk.

“Du är saknad,” Tom says and Harry feels his eyebrows drawing together before translating. Swedish. _You are missed._ Harry spent a year in Sweden. He wonders how Tom knows.

“I don’t really care,” Harry grits out in English, beginning to get annoyed. What is Voldemort playing at?

“Tu ne veux pas revenir?” Tom then whispers, drawing ever closer until he’s nearly a hair’s breadth away.

Harry scrunches his nose. He’s never been good at French. _Don’t you want to come back?_ Harry struggles to translate, frowning.

“Not really, no,” Harry replies stubbornly in English, refusing to let Tom Riddle intimidate him into backing up, into playing this stupid game. 

“ _Will you come with me?”_ Tom asks slyly, eyes glinting in the streetlight.

“No, you ass, I’m staying _right here,_ ” Harry snaps, annoyed. And it is then that he realises his mistake. _Parseltongue._

Arms wrap around Harry with the speed of a striking viper, Harry inhaling sharply in surprise as Tom Riddle’s forehead is pressed against Harry’s own. Harry is pressed against the lithe, firm frame of _Voldemort,_ the thought reeling him as he scrambles to grasp the situation.

“I thought so,” Tom whispers heatedly, victoriously. “You are not a Squib. No Squib could know my ancestral tongue. No Squib could still harbour my soul and survive.”

“Soul?” Harry repeats, flabbergasted. Tom Riddle is strangely warm where he’s pressed against Harry, their misting breath shared between them.

“You don’t know, do you?” Tom replies curiously, gazing at Harry as if he were a great gift, to be revered and treasured. He’s close – _so close so close –_

“I see you’re still as crazy as ever,” Harry says dryly, forcing his panic down. If he can ruffle Voldemort, he can escape him. It’s a song as old as time. Anger Voldemort and Harry has a chance of survival.

“Oh, Harry,” Tom tuts pityingly, uncharacteristically not taking the bait, pulling in Harry impossibly closer, “You have no idea, my little horcrux. _You are mine.”_

Harry shudders, something strange and foreign rising up in his chest. He closes his eyes, an old wound within him rearing its head. It feels like – like _magic._ The link between them glows for a moment, flaring. Harry hasn’t felt this in years. Power filters through his frame, revitalizing and welcome and endlessly warm. It feels like… _Homecoming._

“You feel it too,” Tom whispers against Harry’s lips, so close they are brushing. “You feel it, Harry.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Harry answers dazedly, warm and drugged by the swelling of magic in his soul. Something within him is reaching out, touching the bond between them. It is ecstasy, it is warmth, it is freeing.

“My equal,” Tom whispers against Harry’s lips, “My marked equal. Your soul is mine,” Tom breathes. His tone is reverent, possessive, wonderous, lost.

“Soul mine,” Harry repeats, the bond glowing brighter, warmer, stronger. “You won’t change me?” Harry asks, whispering into the darkness and light between them. “You won’t make me be someone I’m not? You won’t hurt me?” There’s an ache in his chest, a lonely child standing in a cupboard under the stairs. Harry knows Tom sees it, because there’s an image in Harry’s mind of a child standing in an orphanage, alone, lost, hurt. Empathy.

“Never,” Tom promises, a kiss pressed against Harry’s cold lips. “Come with me.” It’s not a request, it’s a proposal.

“Okay,” Harry breathes helplessly, unsure what he’s agreeing to and yet, despite it all, he lets Tom Riddle take him home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 will be Tom's POV


	2. Chapter 2

Lord Voldemort burns with triumph as his unnaturally long, deformed hands grip the skull of Bertha Jorkins. The woman’s eyes have long since rolled into her head, froth lining her gaping mouth. It was a rather ghoulishly amusing touch of deux ex machina for the ignorant, vapid little Ms. Jorkins to have chosen Albania for her holiday. Voldemort trusts the coincidence is a sign from the universe: the Triwizard Tournament will become the vehicle of his resurrection.

The flesh of his hideous, miniature homunculus body suffers chemical burns from the life-giving potion he drinks, Nagini’s venom both a blessing and a curse. His bones creak weakly. His mind churns with pain. Voldemort has been trapped in this ghastly form ever since he attempted to possess a small baby, the ritual going horrifically wrong and leaving him stuck helplessly in this deformed body.

Voldemort tosses aside the hollow husk of Jorkins unceremoniously, thin lips peeling back into a horrific grin, his mind racing ahead as he imagines how the tournament will play out. It will be glorious. Harry Potter will finally die and, with his dying breath, he will give Lord Voldemort _life_.

* * *

It is less than a week to the First Task. Voldemort thrums with anticipation. He has finally made his seventh horcrux, using his precious Nagini as the honoured container for his soul. _Finally, seven_. He is unparalleled, the master of magic. _He will be a god._

The snivelling, rotten Peter Pettigrew has gone to bed, but Voldemort cannot sleep. He stares into the fire, flickering flames casting jumping shadows over the Riddle Manor. His mind does not stop imagining his next step, and the one after, and the one after that. He is weaving a grand, intricate tapestry on the loom of life. Voldemort will win. The boy will die. It will be as it was always meant to be. In eight short months, Voldemort will put this nightmare of thirteen years behind him, will forget it had even existed in the eternity of time that unfolds before him.

Voldemort starts suddenly, a strange trickle of… _Power…_ Filtering through his weak frame. Voldemort does not understand where it is coming from, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. The trickle seems to be hyper focused within his core, as if he had just consumed a magic replenishing potion. For the first time in years, Voldemort feels – _strong_.

And then abruptly, with the unexpectedness of an explosion, a dam breaks within and Voldemort is _flooded_ with magic. He cries out weakly, the bright, warm magic of another crashing through his body and utterly overwhelming him. The sheer strength of the magic is unparalleled, the purity and warmth of it blistering Voldemort inside out. Voldemort feels his body bending under the pressure of the magic’s force – _he cannot take it anymore –_ when, unexpectedly, it stops as immediately as it started.

Voldemort pants, nightmarishly long fingers clutching the carved arms of the chair. The magic has stopped filling him, but it is still there, simmering under his fingertips and humming in his core. Voldemort focuses on the magic: it feels like it had escaped, had rushed to him as a last-gasp attempt for life. Something has changed, the magic desperate to find a new host. Why it had come to Voldemort, he did not know.

For the first time in decades, Voldemort feels whole. The magic roils within him, treats him like an old friend. It may be bursting with life and love and passion, but it is also singed dark. It is, strangely, _compatible_.

Voldemort reels under the weight of two cores, his body trembling and aching. A clarity he hasn’t felt in over a decade blooms in his mind. With each passing moment, the magic heals the splinters in his mind, tends to the madness beaten into him during his years as a bodiless spirit. It is overcompensating, perhaps attempting to heal its new master where it failed its old. It fills him with unexpected _sanity_.

Voldemort needs one of his horcruxes. _Why had he not considered his horcruxes?_

The closest is the ring.

Voldemort turns in the chair, looking through the dark room to the hallway, peering in the direction of Pettigrew’s resting place. Voldemort will need someone to put on the ring, to disarm the spell. It could not be undone, the curse only releasing the Gaunt ring once it had infected a new target. And once Pettigrew has sacrificed himself for his master, Voldemort will wear the ring. Voldemort will let his horcrux consume his soul, a fail-safe built into his horcruxes ( _as if he would ever feel remorse for those murders_ ) and the ring will bind them together to recreate his old body of flesh, bone, life.

Tom Riddle will live again.

* * *

Voldemort dies on the afternoon of the First Task and Tom Riddle resurrects in his place.

The man rises to his feet, an echo of his forty-year-old self reborn into flesh, sinew, blood. A crumbling, blackened husk of a man lays on the floor beside a withered baby. _Pathetic_ , Tom thinks to himself. _How had he been brought so low?_

Voldemort’s memories filter through his, as chopped and twisted as they are. The horcruxes. His core was too unstable, his mind too twisted by years as an apparition. Tom feels the madness flicker in his mind, even now. He will need to reabsorb more horcruxes until he is confident he will not descend once more into that revolting baby form or a bodiless phantom.

* * *

Harry Potter is missing. Tom Riddle seethes, blows holes through the Riddle Manor in his rage, in his all-encompassing fury. _How could Barty lose the child? How incompetent must his followers be?_

There is uproar in the wizarding world. Severus Snape reports to Lucius Malfoy (who in turn reports to Tom Riddle) that Dumbledore has not spirited the child away, is desperately searching for the missing child. The boy has run away. The boy has given up his magic.

Tom finds himself stumped by this discovery. It had never once occurred to him that Harry Potter would… _Give up_. The memory of the child standing in his way in front of the Mirror of Erised, fiercely defending his life and burning Quirrell to the ground with his bare hands – this image is at odds with the child who ran away from a Tournament.

In the decade after the accursed night at Godric’s Hollow, Voldemort had built Harry Potter into a fated enemy in his mind, an ideology rather than a person. And yet, something has happened, between those years. Orphans do not run away from safe, happy homes.

Tom needs to know where Harry Potter is. After all, there is still a Prophecy. Unlike years before, however, he will not overplay his hand nor attempt to attack the child until the time is right.

Unfortunately for Tom and Dumbledore alike, a runaway child without a magical core who has denounced their name is very difficult to locate indeed.

* * *

Tom Riddle stands in the entrance hall of Number Four Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey. There is a strange, high pitch whine in his ear, tuned out white noise. There are crumbling wards surrounding the muggle house, ruins of an ancient blood ritual. Tom strolls through the house, searching for Harry Potter. Perhaps, in his fear, the child returned to his relative’s home. If he continued on, perhaps he left a clue as to his location.

There are three hideous muggles, bound and gagged in the living room.

Tom Riddle pauses before a cupboard, the little door surreptitiously small and reeking with accidental magic. Tom unlocks the cupboard without a second thought – _the padlock unusual in its heft and appearance in the muggle abode –_ and pulls the door open.

Tom’s formative years at the orphanage come crashing back in an instant as he looks down at the tiny space in the cupboard under the stairs. The room has been untouched, perhaps kept as a form of trophy by the twisted Dursley family. There is a cot. A shelf of broken green soldiers no bigger than his palm. There is a Hogwarts Letter, the aged parchment and green cursive winking at him through the dim light of a single bulb. Tom pulls the edge of the letter and reads the address: _Harry Potter, Cupboard Under the Stairs._

It is succinctly Dumbledore, to know the child was being treated like a house elf, to let the child know that he knows. To create a narrative that Hogwarts is a refuge, a safe haven for those who are Good. That the wizarding world could not protect children in the years before they arrive to Hogwarts nor in the summer holiday season, that Hogwarts was a _privilege_ and not a _right_. Dumbledore had always believed in tearing someone down so that he may build them back up in his image.

Bitterness sours Tom’s mouth. He crumples the letter in his fist, softly closes the cupboard door with a quiet _shlick_. He trots up the stairs, following his instincts. Surely enough, there is another bedroom. Seven locks on the exterior. A cat flap cut into the base of the door. The room smells of depression, loneliness, hope. Tom’s nostrils flare, his mouth curling.

Tom Riddle had imagined, as an exercise of amusement over the years, what he would have become if he had fallen prey to Dumbledore’s manipulations. Now, looking at the neglectfully peeling wallpaper and his second core reaching out to the depressed magic saturated in the walls like an old friend and listening to the grunts of panicking muggles on the first floor, Voldemort learns what could have been.

* * *

Tom Riddle drifts through a dream, conscious and yet not awake.

_Toi idiot! Vous allez gâcher le repas!_ A man hollers, the speed and thickness of his accent difficult for Tom to translate on the dime.

A black-haired boy with eyes greener than any natural shade stares at the agitated man. He bows his head deferentially, though Tom knows he struggles to understand the words, to understand why he is being punished. Tom looks through the child’s eyes, confused as to how he can see this scene. _How is he here? How is he still connected? The boy has no magic._

Tom is struck by a sudden realisation, by what this connection means.

_Je suis désolé_ , the boy says with painful awkwardness, as if he had never learned Latin and was reciting haltingly from a dictionary. _I am sorry._ Tom’s lips curl in annoyance at the apology – _only snivelling brats apologise –_

The boy’s head rears suddenly, as if he had heard Tom’s thought, and Tom feels his spirit thrown from the scene as he wakes harshly, returning to his own body with unceremonious abruptness.

Tom Riddle rises from his bed and throws floo powder into his simmering fireplace. He arrives with a vengance in Antibes, France. It takes Tom Riddle seven days to realise Harry Potter has already moved on.

* * *

Tom Riddle has begun his rise to power once more in Great Britain. He has carefully laid out a political plan to ensure he is Prime Minister by the turn of the century. Voldemort has never been stronger than now, two cores giving him unparalleled strength. Dumbledore, of course, is nothing shy of a thorn in his side. But since the disappearance of Harry Potter, Dumbledore looks to have aged several decades at once.

In his spare time, Tom hunts for Harry Potter. The seer of the accursed prophecy, _that imbecile Trelawney,_ is identified so that he does not require Harry Potter to retrieve him the record from within the Hall of Prophecies. There is a strong memory charm on the seer’s mind, but Tom breaks it with ease. Of course, it would take special effort to not permanently damage her, but Tom does not care for preserving her already tenuous mental state.

Harry Potter is as much a phantom as Voldemort was all those years ago in Albania. There are snippets of his life, small breadcrumbs that lead Tom on a wild goose chase across the world. For a year, Tom learns the contours of Sweden in his dreams. _Har du ett jobb? Hur mycket kostar det att hyra ett rum?_ _Jag älskar inte dig._

It should be effortless, to find the teenager. It should be simple. Harry Potter, however, has never been simple.

* * *

Tom Riddle has never fallen in love. He is aware of the symptoms when he sees them in others. Tom Riddle has been the centre of obsession for many over the years. He wields the affection, the weakness, like a leash.

It takes Tom Riddle seven years to fall in love with Harry Potter.

_Willst du mich heiraten?_ A woman asks on his twenty first birthday. _Will you marry me?_

Tom Riddle bares his teeth, _envy jealously fury,_ turning over in his sleep as his nails shred his duvet.

_Nien,_ the young man answers dismissively.

Tom settles, a dark laugh bubbling through his lips.

* * *

A daydream grows sharper for a still moment – Harry Potter is near. The second core yearns, reaches out wantonly through distance and space as it whispers for its master. Tom Riddle stands abruptly, walks out of the Wizengamot meeting with no mind for the sycophantic calls for his return.

By the time Tom Riddle arrives in Belgium, Harry is already a forgotten memory.

* * *

_Vy odinokiy_ , a handsome man tells Harry Potter, lacing their fingers together. _You are alone._

_YA nikogda ne byvayu odin_ , the young man replies, pulling away. _I am never alone._

Tom Riddle smiles quietly in the darkness of his dream. He agrees – Harry is never alone, not really.

* * *

Harry Potter has stopped running. He lives in a sparse Russian city, works in a small diner. The young man feels affection for his employer. Perhaps he has finally found his resting place, for he does not continue on as he has in the past. Perhaps Harry is tired of running. Perhaps Harry is tired of living.

Tom Riddle apparates onto a small cobblestone road, drifting snow swirling with a flourish upon his arrival. Tom can feel him here, can feel the core within singing out in excitement and desperation. Tom is breathless. He has waited ten years for this moment.

Harry is exactly as he imagined and yet nothing like it at all. At twenty-four, he is taller than he used to be. His hair is no less messy than it was at fourteen. He has grown into his features, delicate and sharp. His eyes are wise beyond their years.

And, with the brazen confidence that Tom Riddle has associated with Harry Potter in all this time, the young man sends him a sneering look and turns his back on him.

Tom Riddle is rooted to the spot. He had expected anger, yelling, a fight. But this version of Harry is not interested. Yet Harry did not run, nor did he tell Tom to leave. So Tom waits for the end of the shift. He can barely feel the cold snowflakes drifting down and landing on his coat, has no patience to pay attention to the chill of his breath. Tom waits for Harry to emerge.

When Harry sends the old chef away, _an old friend he whispers,_ when he locks his knees and lets Tom approach him in the dead of the snowy night, Tom knows in that moment what he is. Harry’s eyes burn verdant green, defiant and undefeated. The magical core within him _writhes._

Tom knows Harry will never respond to Parseltongue, not willingly. It is perhaps rude to trick the young man, but it is worth it for the burst of victory on his tongue.

Tom bundles the smaller man into his arms, the second core breaking free and flooding Harry once more. As Harry reels, Tom feels nothing shy of all-encompassing wonder and _possessiveness._ This man is his, his soul and magic and love. He belongs to _Tom._

_I love you,_ Tom wants to say. Instead, he breathes “ _You feel it too,”_ in their shared language, the empty space between them sacrilege. He presses closer, crushes himself against the smaller frame. The horcrux within Harry sings, the twining of their magical cores obliterating in its pure fire.

There is something wounded, small and hurt within Harry. There is fear of being loved, fear of being touched. Fear of letting himself open. Fear of letting himself be moulded, shaped, altered.

“ _You won’t change me? You won’t make me be someone I’m not? You won’t hurt me?”_ The young man whispers, not even aware he’s speaking in Parseltongue. He is perfection, this beautiful, impossible contradiction of a boy. Tom sees the cupboard under the stairs, the image filtering through to him from Harry. Tom pushes the memory away, lets Harry see his own scars, a baring of wounds that is more vulnerable than Tom has ever been in his entire life. Harry breathes a sigh like a prayer against Tom’s lips as Tom promises him everything.

_Marry me,_ Tom wants to say. “ _Come with me,”_ he says instead.

“ _Okay_ ,” Harry breathes and Tom can barely believe it, can hardly believe that he’s caught this impossible-to-have man. That after years of strangers attempting to sneak into Harry’s locked heart, Tom is the one to hold the young man’s fluttering life in his hands.

Tom slips the Gaunt family jewel onto Harry’s ring finger, the horcrux within gone but the stone’s innate magic glimmering in the snowy streetlight.

_“You will not change me?”_ Tom asks between kisses, skin cold but soul burning, turning the words on Harry. “ _You won’t try to make me be someone I’m not?”_

_“Never,”_ Harry promises in echo of Tom’s vow, melted against Tom and letting the taller man keep him standing, arms wound around Tom’s neck and lithe, calloused fingers buried in his hair as he presses chapped lips to Tom’s over and over.

Tom grins, victory searing through his soul, and lets everything in the peripheral turn to ash under the warmth of Harry’s love.


End file.
